The next day, after an intense morning of vocal rehearsals and adding the finishing touches to my new album, I get changed and head over to JYP.
~ YOUR OUTFIT ~
It's intense déjà vu as I walk into the building, and not the pleasant kind. I recognise a lot of the staff as I walk in – he was racist, she was xenophobic, on and on. As I walk through the halls, trainees stare at me, whispering to each other. Some are bold enough to ask for my autograph or a photo, and I'm only happy to oblige.
Finally, I make it to the room Felix mentioned and I knock on the door.
Felix opens the door and smiles as soon as he seems me. I give him a hug, when suddenly, he picks me up, runs into the room and spins me around. I squeal.
Then, Bang Chan's familiar voice says,
"Stay, please welcome today's special guest: ZeeZee!"
Felix puts me down and I finally realise they're on Vlive.
"Hey Stay!" I laugh. Felix pulls me a seat and I sit down. "Is this Chan's room?"
"It is," Chan smiles, giving me a one-armed hug. "How've you been?"
"I'm good, how are you?"
"I'm good yeah..."
There's an awkward silence and the three of us burst out laughing. Chan picks up his phone and checks the comments.
"How did we meet? That's a good question. Felix?"
"Yeah, so, when I joined JYP, I think I could speak like... four words of Korean. So, I had a really hard time navigating the building, and I needed to learn the language. So, I think I walked in on Zee rehearsing, and when I apologised, she started talking to me in English."
"Yeah, and then I became his Korean teacher," I laugh.
"She's a great teacher, way better than the members," Felix laughs, replying to one of the comments. "And after I introduced her to Chan, we formed a little trio."
"Wait!" Chan shouts, bursting out laughing. "Zee, do you remember when me and Felix would sneak you food?!"
"Oh my gosh!" I shout, laughing too. "During Sixteen, all of us were on really strict diets. I'm talking less than rabbit food. So, Felix and Chan would go on these like, James Bond spy missions to sneak us noodles and ramen, and then we'd eat them in the toilets – not hygienic I know."
"Oh yeah!" Felix laughs. "And that one time we got caught."
We burst out laughing again.
"So," Chan grins. "We bought a full bag of ramen for the girls and a small cake cause it was... Momo's birthday I think? Anyway, we're sneaking into their practice room, thinking there's no teachers, and then, the second we go to open the door, their teacher opens it, seeing us with this full bag of ramen, and before she can say anything, we legged it!"
"It was so funny," I laugh, wiping a happy tear from my eye. "But the best bit was definitely the water fight."
Felix and Chan look at me, and the three of us howl with laughter.
"It was such a dumb idea! How did we think we were gonna get away with it?"
Once I've stopped laughing enough, I start to explain.
"So, I told these two idiots about how I've never had a water fight, and they were like, right, we're having one! We were having a really busy week, so we were all supposed to be rehearsing, but us three, Momo, Han, Somi and Changbin all made this meticulous plan to have a water fight in a practise room. We had towels, plastic sheets, an excessive amount of mops – we were prepared."
"And then," Felix cuts in. "We were having the time of our lives with this massive indoor water fight – we were soaked! When the fricking fire alarm goes off!"
"We were all freaking out thinking 'what do we do?!' We were completely soaked, covered in bits of water balloon and our teachers knew we were supposed to be rehearsing. Worst of all, it was a real fire, so we had to leave. There was nothing to do but walk out."
"And the stares we got," Chan laughs. "Honestly, it was awful. So, after the fire thing was sorted out, we all do the walk of shame to the practice room, and all of our teachers were waiting for us."
"We must have done planks for hours."
"Priceless," Chan chuckles.